Pages

Sunday, 4 December 2016

So, isn’t the deal with joining a gym that you instantly
lose a stone, and then several subsequent pounds every time you put a pair of
trainers on?

I’m back at my old gym.

By ‘back at’ I mean I’ve set up a direct debit and carry around
a sense of guilt for not actually going.

I’ve tried one class.

Which was murder.

It’s not just that everyone on the entire planet is fitter
than me, it’s that it’s learning a whole new language.

I thought a burpee was a cutsie way of referring to wind.

But it turns out it’s a torturous series of exercises where
you go from lying down to jumping up mega quickly; subsequently putting the
strength of your pelvic floor to the test.

I’m not a vain person.

You only need to look at the state of my current wardrobe,
which is mainly the staple mum uniform of striped T-shirt and white converse
with a pair of jeans that give me a 24-7 builders ass, to know that.

But I am getting married next year.

Pictures to mark the occasion might possibly lurk on the top
of a family members piano for years to come.

I want my children to look back at the day and think,
wowzers, my mum looks immense.

Instead of, was it the trend in 2017 to wear trainers and an
ill-fitting T-shirt to your own wedding?

So I’m going in, I’m starting to take the gym more seriously
that it just being a monthly reminder on a bank statement.

I’m going to buy a pair of leggings that haven’t been
through two pregnancies.

I’m going to get rid of the sports bra that smells like the
inside of a trainer and gives about as much support as a Satsuma net bag, in
favour of the kind of thing they wear at the Olympics, all streamline and
luminous.

I’m going to set personal bests.

And I’m going to smash them.

But, as with all good ideas, they start on Monday.

So first I’m going to get under a duvet and eat all the
chocolates out my advent calendar in preparation for tomorrows new me.

Sunday, 20 November 2016

What do you do when it turns out your children are immune to
being bollocked?

We’re in the car; it’s a long car journey.

By long I mean seven hours.

It was meant to be four but I nodded off at a crucial map
reading stage and missed the turning so we ended up doing most of the journey
on windy B roads.

Anyway, the children are starting to bicker.

I should also add that we’ve just spent the weekend with
friends in a cottage for a 40th so add lack of sleep and
brain-crunching hangover to the tolerance levels.

So the kids are winding each other up.

And I’ve asked them to stop, which they don’t.

They get louder, and I ask them again to pack it in, this
time adding that there won’t be any telly when we get home if they don’t.

And they don’t.

They get louder, and louder.

A two year old’s scream is like nails down a blackboard when
you’re nursing a red wine hangover.

And now I raise my voice, I’m cross and I tell them so.

To which they copy me.

They actually imitate me.

I do sound ridiculous when a 2 and 5 year old are doing an
impression of me. I’m proper mardy and saying things I remember my mum used to
say to me, about how disappointed I am, blah blah blah.

It’s good to know that the world has changed, technology has
advanced beyond understanding and world politics are virtually unrecognisable,
but the good old-fashioned fundamentals of bollockings haven’t moved on in the
last 30 years.

Anyway, I persist down this route to no avail.

And I’m thinking, where do you go from here? What happens
when your threats are met with laughter and mimicry?

I’m losing my authority and I didn’t see it coming.

So I’m going to have to find other ways to get my own back.

Like making them listen to the entire Archers omnibus
instead of their CD of nursery rhymes.

Inflicting the Ambridge Christmas panto preparations on them
for best part of two hours.

Sunday, 23 October 2016

Not just talking about it when we’re drunk, or saying we don’t
want to when we’re pissed off with each other.

Properly.

Like booked the registry office properly.

And I thought, right then, I’m going to get that
mythologised pre-baby body I have made up back. You know, the size eight, year
round tan, boobs that don’t look like they’ve been ravaged through
breast-feeding body I've totally never had.

So I joined a dance fitness class.

I probably shouldn’t have eaten the best part of a family
bag of malteasters on the way there.

But fuck it.

I had big hopes that this class was going to right half a
decade’s worth of wrongs so what’s another massive bag of chocolate between
friends?

The first thing I realised on arrival is that music seems to
have moved on whilst I’ve been listening to a combo of radio 2 and The Archers.

For fear of sounding like my mum when I was growing up….

It's just noise now.

A loud awful noise.

Everyone in the class was at least half my age and mouthing
the words and I thought, OK maybe it’s just the warm up. But song after shit
song came on, none of which I recognised.

Nevermind.

I’m going to be sooooo hot and young looking after this
class I can get over the music.

I stumbled my way through the dance routines, eying the
clock every two minutes which I think was probably going backwards.

How can I only have been in there for seven minutes?

The class must surely be ending soon.

And then the titchy instructor says the words that makes anyone
with a hint of social anxiety recoil.

‘Can you get into pairs please?’

Are you shitting me? This is a fitness freaking class, not
Strictly.

And as if finding a partner wasn’t bad enough(most people it turned out had been going to
the class for at least five years,) one of us had to then lie on the floor, grab
the ankles of their partner for support, and lift their legs in the air.

So I’m holding this woman’s ankles with my sweaty hands,
trying not to look up at her crotch and attempting to swing my legs into the
air. And I’m wondering if it’s possible to just do a crowdfunder for
liposuction instead, when I remember how absolutely rancid my trainers are.

I have had them since I was in my early twenties and keen
meaning to buy another pair or at least Febreze this pair, but I hadn’t
anticipated a stranger having her face so close to them.

And I question whether getting a smoking-hot,
twenty-years-younger-than-I-actually-am, catch-my-reflection-in-a–shop-window-and-don’t-realise-it’s-me
body is going to be a tad harder than a couple of stomach crunches.

So I’m going to take a different approach.

As I polish off the rest of the Malteasters on the bus home
I google the most effective Spanx on the market.

Sunday, 9 October 2016

My daughter has started school and I now have just my two-and-a-half-year old son to entertain within the hours of 8.55am- 3pm every Friday.

And I realise this is probably the longest time we have
spend together, just the two of us, since he was born.

Apart from when we were in the recovery ward at hospital.

But I’m going to discount that, as he was asleep for most of
the time.

On the plus side he has started aggressively telling me I’m
his best friend.

Which is lovely (ish) if he could tone down The Sopranos
style threat that seemingly accompanies it.

But the main thing I’ve realised since the two of us have
started kicking about together, is that he doesn’t really have any mates.

And I am entirely to blame for this.

When Nancy was born I went to all the classes; baby yoga,
baby swimming, baby zumba, baby sign language (I know- I might as well have
burnt £150. AGAIN- I KNOW!! What I would give for that one hundred and fifty
quid now…)

With Thomas, I already had that group of mum mates, the
brilliant women I’d meet for coffee and a whinge whilst Nancy hung out with
their children. And if they had a child of a similar age for Thomas to play
with, then that was a Brucey bonus. Otherwise he settled for following around the
bigger children whose legs move twice as quickly as his.

On top of this, I question how well he is coping with his
sister starting school.

I suspect he thought it would only last a couple of days.

In fairness, none of us had prepared for that fact that
school goes on FOREVER.

But, for a boy who has never so much as taken a bear to
bed, he is now carrying around a lot of shit with him as a comforter.

He will not leave the house without his child’s rucksack
containing-

A pair of sunglasses

A Barbie dress

One glove

A hair clip

A glittery pink Frozen cap

An old mobile phone belonging to the childminder.

If any one of these things are left behind then all hell
breaks loose.

He also sleeps with the rucksack.

Which, given the fact that both children creep into our bed
in the middle of the night, is slightly inconvenient.

There's not enough room for four heads on the pillow, let alone
additional luggage.

So. Mission mother and son has started.

First mission- sort out some mates for him.

Second mission- convince him that he doesn’t need to go to
bed wearing a baseball cap, sunglasses and one glove, clutching a rucksack.

VOTE FOR ME!

NWS Good Blog Guide

Contact Form

My badge...

Brit Writers' Awards

Google+ Followers

Total Pageviews

About Me

I am founder and Co-Director of Broken Leg Theatre- www.brokenlegtheatre.org and Relationship Manager, Theatre at Arts Council England. I am also Nancy and Thomas's mum, and that's what my blog is about www.youcantakeherhomenow.blogspot.co.uk. And how life has changed since they came into our world. (It's not all about sleep deprivation, I promise...)